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Cypripedium wardii (Orchidaceae) employs pseudopollen with both reward and deception to attract both flis and bees as pollinators

C. Zheng,Yi-Bo Luo,Yundong Gao,P. Bernhardt,Shiqi Li,Bo Xu,Xin-fen Gao

Published 2021 in bioRxiv

ABSTRACT

Flowering plants always attract animals providing rewards or deceptive signals to gain reproductive success. However, there is no well-documented reporting about a pollination mechanism with both rewards and deceptive signals by a same object. We found Cypripedium wardii flowers seem to attract visitors by the white pseudopollenlike trichomes on labella in our preliminary field observation. To explore the pollination mechanism of Cypripedium wardii, especially, the ecological function of the pseudopollen-like trichomes, we conducted field observations, analyses of the traits of visitors and flowers, and breeding system experiments. The white trichomes composed by multicellular moniliform hairs on the floral labella played a crucial role to attract pollinators, causing a high natural fruit set ratio in C. wardii. We established the direct connection of the white trichomes and real pollen. We propose that flowers of C. wardii provide pseudopollen to attract suitable bees and hoverflies as pollinators. And our evidence indicate that the pseudopollen owns both deceptive and rewarding ecological functions. Our study provide a clear pollination mechanism with both rewards and deceptive signals by a same object in angiosperm for the first time. However, an inbreeding depression seem to be caused by this strategy. And we speculated that the pollen mimicry strategy with both rewarding and deceptive functions in C. wardii may be an adaptation to the habitat fragmentation of this species to gain a reproductive assurance.

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